All in a nickname

Hey the bull is coming, watch out!’ says your friend as your Economics lecturer enters class and of course only you can understand who ‘bull’ is. ‘Oh, so GN (aka Geeky Nerd) will be in high spirits today,’ you say to your friend. Giving nicknames to people they want to talk/ gossip about or people they don’t like is something that many youngsters do. From whacky names to names that can’t be cracked, there’s a variety of nicknames.

“We give girls’ names to our guy friends when we’re talking about them on the phone when our parents are around us! Also, when we want to talk about someone in class and they’re sitting close to us, we use nicknames. There’s this couple whose names start with ‘C’ so when we’re referring to them together, we call them ‘C Square’,” says student Neeti R.

Her friend Nitya M mentions how she and her friends would give names of vegetables to guys in school. “We named this guy ‘lady’s finger’ ‘cos he used to flirt with girls,” she says.

Event Manager Sruthi Hariharan says that ‘nicknaming’ is something that she and her friends do quite often. “In college, when my best friend and I would use the code names we’d given the guys so that the other girls wouldn’t know who we’re talking about,” she says.

Giving nicknames to teachers is a favoruite pastime. “We used to call our Head of Department ‘Goblin’ ‘cos he was short and had elf-like ears! A short-tempered lecturer was called ‘Armageddon’,” says engineering graduate Suhas A.

Teachers, bosses, annoying people — if you want to talk about any of them, then use the golden ‘nickname’ policy!